Today we're picking up verse 17 where Jesus continues in his engagement with people and says to these folk, both Simon and Andrew and others, “Come, follow me.”

Let's stay with those three words for the moment. Understand that God is the inviting God! As Dallas Willard reminded me, God is the great includer. And He continues to invite - invite to the banquet, invite into his presence, invite children.

Jesus looks at you in the face today and says, “Come, come to me, come to me.” This is a personal encounter. This is not just religiosity. This is not a religion. This is not a set of rules and regulations and oughts and shoulds and musts and have tos and things that are tasks for us to do to be religious. This is Jesus seeing us for who we are and saying, “Come to me. This is deeply personal, this is deeply real, and I take you seriously. I know you by name. I know who you are. I've seen you through your entire life. And I want for you to experience something that is about you and me in a relationship.” That coming is great because Jesus says, “come as you are, and I will do something with you.”

Then the second and third words are “Follow me.” And there are many books written in our world today about leadership. But show me the number of books that are written about followership. And so therefore, Jesus is saying, “I will be your leader. I'm the greatest leader that ever lived.” Not that he used those words himself, but we know him to be.

He's saying, “Come follow me. Live your life as if I was you. Live as I lived. And follow my example. Follow me. Because I go with you into those experiences.”

And so today, as you enter into whatever you are doing, Jesus invites you into his presence throughout the day and invites you to follow Jesus’ example in each of the events and every encounter through this day today.

God bless you.

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